Harbin Nightview

Adventures : 2008. 5. 7. 21:24
I personally think Harbin has very wonderful nightview and its nightview is at par with well known cities like Hong Kong or Shanghai.

While Shanghai or HK has very ultra modern nightview, I think Harbin's has more clasical flavor than those cities. Because Harbin was under Russian rule till 1940s or so, many of buildings from then still remained and with beautiful lightings, they look gorgeous. For a while, I thought that I was in Europe and not in China. Also in Harbin, it wasn't too hard to see group of Russians and Russian stores. 
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When it's darker, things look way more gorgeous:

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Pics from St. Sophia Cathedral
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It used to be a Russian Orthodox Church but ever since Harbin became part of China, it's no longer a church. Currently, they use it as a museum.

However, the only complaint that I have is that.. They suddenly turned all the light off at once.. w/o giving us any short notices. 

Posted by ch__
The first place we went in Harbin after we arrived was ZhongYang Dajie (中央大街)
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One of the unique thing about this street is that...
It is one of the few place in China where we can experience European culture. I would say it's like Chinese version of Quebec.
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Before 1950s, when People's Republic of China was established, Harbin was under Russian rules. Thus it wasn't too hard to find European style buildings from early 20th century. Those buildings were well maintained.

It wasn't too hard to find Russian stores and Russians in this city.. Many Russians come to Harbin to shop/hang around because it's cheap compare to Russia.
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USA Bucks...(USA 巴克酒吧)? Is it Fake version of Starbucks?

Note: in (Mandarin) Chinese, Starbucks is known as 星巴克咖啡

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As name says (酒吧 instead of 咖啡), it's a pub.. lol
They also sell coffee

We were looking for "real" Starbucks in Harbin but it was unsuccessful .. =.=;

A Russian restaurant in Harbin:
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The entrance of this restaurant, this building was built in 1914.
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Posted by ch__

Bed bus to Harbin

Adventures : 2008. 5. 4. 22:50
Me and some of my friends went to Harbin, one of the largest city in the northeast china, for May 1st Labor Day holiday trip

Because we planned the trip at the last minute, we couldn't get the train ticket so the only choice we had was to take the bus to Harbin :(

Because it was overnight bus, surprisingly it was "bed bus" instead of coaches
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Our "bed" bus to Harbin(哈尔滨,哈爾濱)

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Inside of "sleeper (bed) bus".. Note there's only beds instead of seats
Thus we had to lie in the bed for whole journey and more surprisingly, inside of the bus was well maintained. The bus was cleaner than I thought and comfortness wasn't too bad... better than I thought

The bus was suppose to depart from Yanji at 7:30pm and arrive at Harbin in 4:30 am or so but it departed 1 1/2 hours later than scheduled time. :( Also bus arrived at Harbin 7:30 or so.. Thus including waiting times, the whole journey took merely 12 hours!!!!!

It was pretty unique experience :)




Posted by ch__